Archive: Blog

On behalf of your Executive, I should like to wish our CASARA Ontario members and families a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, this indeed is a time to enjoy the season with family and friends.

We are truly privileged to serve such a dedicated group of volunteers who give so many hours , hours that really belong to family and friends. However, by being the very best we can be – ensures the General Aviation community they have a very dedicated group of professional volunteers have their back – 24/7 and will respond in the event of the unforeseen.

CASARA continues to grow and take on new responsibilities, our affiliations and
partner alliances enable us to do our job better as we continue on our mission to prevent the loss of life.

This year your VP Training and Operations ensured that our zones remained operational and promptly assisted those that required remedial help.

VP Communications continues to work his magic, not only creating an excellent web page but continues to research areas that enhance our search capabilities especially at night and over water.

Thanks to your VPs financial stewardship, we were able; on behalf of CASARA Ontario, to make a donation to the True Patriot Love Foundation. It was truly a experience gratifying for Terry Nord and myself to make this donation on your behalf.

Your Secretary maintains a good working relationship 424 Sqn and JRCC when it comes to SAR Ops and is well able to locate personnel on short notice.

Like all organizations, we cannot function without a knowledgeable ‘hands on’ administrator who ensures the smooth day to day business of CASARA. She runs a tight ship in our day to day business and in doing so ensures good communication between ourselves and the National Office.

Your Executive continues to meet bi-weekly thereby ensuring we are all up to speed on current events and the make early decisions when and where required thereby ensuring timely responses.

But clearly this should also a time of reflection , of those members who have passed on , those fine people who gave so much, and built a solid foundation on which CASARA Ontario stands today. We are a strong, sound organization built on selflessness. Our strength comes from not only caring for others, but importantly, caring for each other…..let us never lose that.

CASARA continues to move forward. We have not yet reached our true potential, (we are not sure what that is yet) However, I do know we are heading in the right direction .

Actually, I do believe the Royal Canadian Air Cadet Motto seems to be rather appropriate as we continue onward and upward ‘To Learn-To Serve-To Advance’ we have been doing this for four decades.

One again, I thank you most sincerely and I wish you and your families a safe and happy Holiday Season

John M Daniels CD, FRAes, President of Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASARA) Ontario (Right) and Terry F. Nord, Executive Member of CASARA Ontario (Left) making a presentation of a $5000 donation to Bronwen Evan, CEO True Patriot Love.

True Patriot Love is a national charity that supports military families, funds community-based programs and contributes to the Canadian Insitutue for Military and Veteran Health Research.

CASARA Ontario is a non-profit aviation association whose aim is to provide a trained group of volunteers to aid and assist the Department of National Defence in the conduct of Search and Rescue (SAR) activities and in the promotion of SAR Awareness to the Ontario public.

For some years now CASARA have been asssisting 424 Squadron in their training of our northern Canadian members. The training varies but usually includes CVT (CASARA Visual Trainer) as well as spotter training onboard the CC-130 Hercules and Twin Ottter aircraft. On this mission to Nunavut, they were fortunate to have a gentleman by the name of Dylan Clark, a CASARA member and McGill University Arctic researcher present. Dylan gave a SAR awareness presentation to the community of Pond Inlet. Many SAR partners were invited to participate including Parks Canada, Rangers, RCMP, CASARA and the RCAF. This mission was extremely successful and given the rigors of working in the far north, it is a testament to the skill, courage and commitment by all involved. CASARA members from Niagara, London, Ottawa, Sault Ste Marie, Montreal and Iqaluit in partnership with RCAF members from 424SQN and 413SQN participated this year. This SAR training mission visited several communities including Resolute, Rankin Inlet, Pond Inlet, Hall Beach, and Iqaluit. Below are some photos to help give you a sense of their accomplishments.

I had the opportunity last week to visit CFB Trenton where a version of Canada’s new SAR platform was on display for the media and members of the SAR community at large. CASARA was of course invited to see the new aircraft and members from National, Quebec and Ontario were represented.
The aircraft, an Airbus 295 was on loan from the Brazilian Air Force. It had many of the new features that the Canadian version will have but the most striking was its suite of advanced EO-IR (electro-optical infra-red) cameras. An MX-15 camera turret mounted on the front of the aircraft made by Burlington, Ontario’s WESCAM was front and centre. In the aircraft itself were two stations which takes all the data from the cameras and makes sense of it.
I have included a few photos below. As you can see this is pretty advanced technology. The aircraft itself is a very mission specific platfrom whereas our current legacy aircraft, the CC-130 Hercules is really a multi-mission platform that can be configured as the scenario requires. As such, it is a much smaller aircraft and is powered by two engines vs. the mighty Herc’s four engine powerplants. The first delivery is scheduled for sometime around 2020 and the fleet could be online by mid 2025.

From June 30 to July 2nd CASARA, for the first time ever joined 424 (T&R) Squadron, 8 Wing, CFB Trenton at an international airshow held at Traverse City Michigan (KTVC). Picking up crews from around Ontario proved challenging due to weather. The CASARA contingent from CARES Zone 11 Niagara, flew a Cessna 337 Skymaster and was forced to leave the night before to pick up Adam Hill from CASARA London, Ontario and then the next day divert to KMBS (Saginaw) en route to KANJ (Sanderson MI near Sault Ste Marie) to clear US Customs. The 424 Squadron aircraft, a Hercules CC-130H, attempted to pick up our crew at KANJ but it too was forced to adapt to the changing weather and finally land at KCIU (Chippewa) where they were able to pick up our final member (Wayne Spencer from CASARA Sault Ste. Marie) for the airshow and clear US Customs. A CH146 Griffon helicopter also made the trip but again due to weather was forced to delay its arrival until after seven pm that day.
Upon arriving at KTVC we found ourselves in good company with the hospitality of the Traverse City Coast Guard Station where we were eventually positioned fittingly under the wing of our Hercules. A variety of US aircraft were in attendance including A-10 Thunderbolts, The US demonstration team, The Thunderbirds flying F-16’s, F-18 Super Hornets and the odd Blackhawk helicopter. It was quite a display! The CASARA aircraft acted as a static disply while the Herc and Griffon flew flypasts on both days with CASARA Spotters onboard. It was a very successful weekend for both 424 and CASARA.
A second reason for attending was to check out the CAP (Civil Air Patrol) at Alpena two and a half hours away. Our CLO, Capt. Claude Courcelles accompanied by the AC for the Cessna Skymaster, Gord Tessier along with the Navigator, Alex Cuberovic made the trek to Alpena where they spent the next day observing CAP’s cadet training program, discussing CAP technology and learning everything we could about CAP. Essentially taking their best practices to see if we can adopt any of them to CASARA. In the end it was discovered that CAP and CASARA are very much alike. The sense of volunteerism among their memebers is par excellence. They truly reflect what is best about America and they made us feel very welcome. We will continue to learn and exchange ideas with our southern neighbours. After sharing a meal with them we departed the next day back to Traverse City. We left for home but were again challenged by the weather forcing us to leave our crew member, Wayne Spencer about an hour south of where we had planned. In the end, everyone made it safely home.
It was an historic weekend for CASARA and we look forward to many more opportunities to share best practices and improve our already good relations with our Amercian SAR partners.

As we approached Canadian Airspace we were soberley reminded of just why we were there. A controller calmly but with a sense of urgency was calling out, looking for an aircrft that as he described it, was officialy reported as overdue. As we neared Grand Bend my Spotter received a text indicating that one of our own Hercules was involved in a search on the west end of Lake Erie after a distress call was made and an overturned canoe was discovered.

Members from New liskeard, London and SERABEC (CASARA in Quebec) zones were embedded with our RCAF 424 Squadron on their annual Western Mountain Trainer exercise.

Check out the videos below.

Thank you to CASARA ON and Squadron 424 for the excellent opportunity for Lesley Tomblin (TEMSAR) Adam Hill (CASARA London) and Marten Berard (SERABEC Sherbrooke) to participate in the West Coast Training Mission. We had an incredible experience.